Category Archives for Human Rights

In my regular weekly news posts about Syria and Iraq, I write often about the many obscenities committed by the Islamic State.

One of these is its twisted Koranic justification for enslaving more than 3,500 captured Yezidi women and children and trading them as “sex-slaves” among their Jihadists.

What those women and children must be going through, physically, emotionally and psychologically, particularly as many will be under-age, beggars belief.

As a psychotherapist I known that the consequences of these experiences, even if they ended today, will be with them for the rest of their lives.

Having worked with many victims of sexual abuse over the years, I can assure you that they do not just “get over it” as many people will exhort them to do.

Sexual abuse deeply damages a victim’s sense of self-esteem and leaves psychological and emotional scars that only prolonged therapy over many years will heal.

Typically, sexual (and physical) abuse victims will be afraid of close or intimate contact with others, particularly with those who look or behave like their abusers, will exhibit hypervigilance and anxiety which monitors everything (but everything) in their environment and be so stressed that normal functioning is almost impossible without the use of anti-depressants or stimulants of some kind.

On top of that, most victims of sexual abuse, male and female, feel so worthless, powerless and inadequate that they will be unable to seek, sustain or afford therapeutic help, even if it is available.

Those very, very brave souls that do undertake the journey of recovery and who are helped to feel and expiate the emotional pain from terror to anger, will do well. But they will never forget.

All the more alarming then that in the 21st century, slavery, and the sexual abuse that often accompanies it, is more prevalent than ever.

Across the world there are currently an estimated 4.5 million victims of sex trafficking. Add to that the estimated 20.9 million trapped in forced labour plus those in bonded labour where they endless work to repay a debt, child labourers working in clothing factories and other places for cents and the estimated 51 million girls that have been forced to marry against their will.

Getting out of poverty, of course, is often the driving force for those that end up in some form of slavery or extreme exploitation, plus the promise of a “better life” that never comes but only gets worse.

And then there are the scum that perpetrate this violence against the soul, seeking out the already vulnerable and desperate to entrap and exploit.

If you think this is not happening in your “backyard” – think again.

I guarantee that in your everyday activity you have passed someone who is trapped into servitude or exploitation in some way or you have purchased an article of clothing, a carpet, electronic products, cocoa and many other products that were made or harvested by someone on the poverty line and with no future prospects, for a few cents pay a day if they are lucky.

According to End Slavery Now.org, “The standard price for sex at a brothel in the U.S. is $30.

Typically, trafficked children see 25-48 customers a day.

They work up to 12 hours a day, every day of the week; every year, a pimp earns between $150,000 and $200,000 per child”.

Between 1995 and 2012, judges in the US allowed 178 children between the ages of 10 and 15 to marry in New Jersey, often to older adults and the Tahirih Justice Center reported a suspected 3,000 forced marriage cases across the US between 2009 and 2011.

In the UK, where forced marriage is now outlawed (though most assuredly still takes place in exploitative and closed domestic settings) there have been a number of cases of young Asian girls, who were born and educated in Britain, being taken to Pakistan or India for a “family holiday”, only to discover that they are actually there to be married off to much older relatives they have never met and with whom they have little in common. That is both sexual abuse and slavery.

Other cases in the UK have involved road and driveway laying gangs who have picked up off the streets men with mental health and addiction problems, imprisoned them and forced them to work for little or no wages and minimal amounts of food or illegal immigrants collecting cockles (seafood) in dangerous tidal waters for less than minimum wages while paying back “accommodation and signing on fees” all the time living in appalling, overcrowded and filthy conditions.

Slavery, in one form or another, is still common across the Middle East and especially in the Gulf States.

The Real Cost Of Qatar’s 2022 World Cup Stadium?

Although King Faisal abolished slavery in Saudi Arabia in 1962, the “employment” of domestic servants from the Philippines, Bangladesh, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Africa often results in conditions of enforced slavery and sexual exploitation.

Karl Anderson, a former Californian accountant, who became an accidental anti-slavery activist when a Facebook friend from the Philippines asked for help, now aids about 10 women a month escape abuse to go to one of the little-discussed shelters in Saudi Arabia established for “household maids.”

“It is slavery,” Anderson says. “Every day, I see the face of slavery.”

“There is a woman who was forced to eat a child’s faeces out of a diaper because she didn’t clean the diaper soon enough,” he says.

“Women are raped, tortured, denied food, denied water, made to work 20 hours a day, seven days a week. One woman was only allowed to eat the food that her sponsor family left on their plates. They are treated like dogs.”

In Qatar, an estimated 600 workers from Nepal, India and Bangladesh are dying every year in appalling conditions and extreme temperatures in the construction industry, including the building of the 2022 World Cup Stadium.

All of this has a long history of course. Slaves almost certainly built the Pyramids in Egypt and most other ancient buildings that survive throughout the world.

Slavery was abolished in the British Empire, which had been instrumental in shipping Africans to its sugar producing colonies in the West Indies for years, in 1833. The USA made slavery unconstitutional in 1865. The French abolished slavery in its colonies in 1848.

Monument to the Fallen Heroes, Tofu, Mozambique

In my travels I have stood several times below a monument in Mozambique in southern Africa where “unruly” African slaves captured by British and Arab traders were hurled off the cliffs onto the rocks below, not unreminiscent of the behaviour of the Islamic State.

The sea there, where whales can be often seen migrating offshore, is wild and the noise, the blasting spray and the jagged rocks make you think; wondering what it must have been like for those young men and women to be ripped away from their families and tribes and set down in a completely alien environment after a very long and appalling sea journey shackled in the most terrible conditions.

Slavery is now illegal in all countries of the world, but in practice it continues in many places in many forms.

The fact is that there are now more slaves in the world today than ever there were at the height of the transatlantic slave trade to the West indies and the southern United States.

President Obama declared January 2016 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

That’s a start, but let’s bring some more consciousness into our own lives.

First, let’s be more aware of how we treat others, particularly those who are weaker or less powerful than ourselves – and especially when we are angry or upset.

Secondly, let’s be more aware of others who may be the victims of exploitation. If you suspect something is going on, there are help or tip-off telephone lines in most developed countries.

And thirdly, if you want to discourage slave-worker exploitation you can find a list of slave-labour free companies by putting in your email address, (scroll down) HERE: and/or follow @EndSlaveryNow on Twitter.

THE DARK SHADOW OF HUMAN CRUELTY

Writing in recent days about the siege of Madaya in Syria, where 28 people were deliberately allowed to starve to death, made me ponder on the dark shadow of human cruelty that always hangs over our daily lives.

A Starving Child in Madaya, Syria

What is it that makes a presumably intelligent, well educated couple like President Assad and London-born wife Asma, who have 2 healthy children of their own, stand back and let other people’s children 30 miles away die from malnutrition and lack of food?

The Assads had the power to change that in an instant.

They could have supplied medical assistance that would have kept the starving alive, but chose not to do that either, because of politics and religion – the victims all belonged to wrong (Sunni) sect.

By contrast Alawite/Shia, supporters of the regime, trapped by an opposition siege in Kefraya and Al Fuah have received fairly regular airdrops of food and other supplies.

Similarly, what makes members of the Islamic State in sickening acts of cruelty, behead people, burn them alive or suicide bomb innocent tourists to death?

The acts of cruelty in war are endless. It’s as though the state of war “gives permission” for common humanity to be completely and illegally suspended – though the boundary between war combatants and non-combatants is becoming increasingly blurred.

And it is not just in war that cruelty manifests, we see it around us almost every day.

VICTIMS OF ACID ATTACKS

Take the cases of acid attack victims. More than 200 in the UK over the last 2 years and an estimated 1,000 a year in India, many of them there never officially reported or treated.

They also occur in the USA and South America and across Europa and Asia. In Bangladesh there have been 3,512 people attacked with acid between 1999 and 2013 alone, though annual numbers are at last reducing.

Acid attacks melt distinctive facial features like noses and ears that most of us take for granted, disfigures bodies, take away sight, cause deafness and ruin lives. The emotional and psychological damage is immeasurable.

Iqbal – Victim of Cruel Acid Attack

Iqbal in Pakistan, a very handsome young man, was just 15 years old when he was attacked with acid.

He was a passionate dancer and danced professionally with his parents in wedding processions.

One night, Iqbal was approached by another man who sexually propositioned him but Iqbal said he wasn’t interested.

While sleeping at home along with his family, Iqbal had acid poured over his head.

He was left blind in both eyes by the attack and his lips and neck burned so badly that eating and drinking are extremely painful.

Iqbal is from a family of poor wood cutters, who dance to earn extra income.

ANIMAL CRUELTY

It is not just our fellow humans that human beings are cruel to. It is also animals.

The reports of animals starved and beaten to death are endless on the Internet, including many animals that were supposedly “pets” or destined for our dinner plates.

And then you have the bizarre phenomena of people who lovingly care for their pets but starve or are cruel to their children.

All of which goes contrary to our natural instincts.

From a biological point of view, newly born and young children and animals are “cute”, innocent and appealing precisely to trigger an affectionate and protective bonding response from those around them, particularly their parents.

We have all probably done cruel things to people, animals or insects at some time in our lives, however “good” we try to be.

I have to confess that I once worked in a zoo where we had to feed the owls and other birds of prey with day-old-chicks.

If we had put live chicks into the cages for the birds to kill there would have rightly been a public outcry, so every week a box of freshly hatched little miracles would arrive at the zoo – and one by one we killed them by breaking their necks and storing them in the fridge.

After a short while, a friend and I could no longer do it – every death felt like an emotional knife wound and eventually such cruel actions became impossible.

DISCONNECTING FROM OUR FEELINGS

Human cruelty and lack of care, which in regard to the young or the elderly can also be cruel, is a result of a disconnect with our feelings to one degree or another. The less we truly feel, the more we can separate ourselves from and ignore what goes on around us.

And we stop feeling of course when we are so full of pain and distress ourselves that feeling it threatens our functioning. Depression, is precisely that, pressing down our painful feelings, but those suffering depression are more likely to harm themselves than be cruel to others.

The dangerous ones are those that are so disconnected from their feelings that they act them out without taking responsibility for those actions. Rage, jealousy, rejection, fear, feelings of inadequacy or other strong emotions can trigger acts of cruelty, often on the weaker and most vulnerable.

Facing up to cruelty of many kinds in our world is not an easy thing to do. It is noticeable with my blog that when I write about people “starving to death” for example, the views of the site immediately go down and when I write about “battles and victories”, the number of views goes up! (It will be interesting to see how this article fares)

Extraordinarily, at the other side of the human coin, sometimes out of cruelty, pain and suffering some good things come.

Laxmi Saa, one of the acid victims mentioned above, was attacked when she was 15 years old merely because she rejected an offer of marriage. Her attacker got just 3 years for disfiguring her for life.

Despite her injuries, Laxmi is well known in India for her campaign to get the sale of acid regulated, because it is far too easy to buy and misuse it.

Now a designer clothes company in India, Viva N Diva, is employing and empowering her as a model for its latest range. Kudos and respect to the company and to Laxmi for her bravery and determination. (You can read more at the BBC)

Finally, what can we do in our own lives to lift the dark shadow of human cruelty hanging over the world?

We can certainly challenge, report and remove cruelty from our own life in whichever form it appears.

As I always say, if you can’t be right, be kind. No-one, animal or human, deserves cruelty.

WHAT DO OUR CHILDREN NEED MOST?

When you ask the question “What do our children need most?”, the answer depends rather a lot on where they are.

I often write about violent countries such as Syria and Iraq and what the children need there most is food, water, protection, security and stability.

And the same is true, to our collective human shame, for children across much of the Middle East and Africa.

These things should be a given staple of life for any society but unfortunately in a 21st century wracked by conflict they are still too often not.

But wars are started and carried on by adults, not children; adults who were themselves children once, perhaps not getting their own needs met.

Clearly our childhood shapes hugely what sort of adult we turn out to be, though over the years there has been an ongoing debate over whether the adult we become is the result of “nature” or “nurture”.

Personally, I think it is a combination of the two, with “nurture”, how we are brought up, influencing us the most.

“Nature”, our genetic inheritance will give us pre-dispositions for certain potential character traits and modes of behaviour, both positive and negative – but which of those comes to the fore, for good or for evil, depends largely on the influences we experience throughout our childhood.

Some psychologists say that our basic character and the way we interact with the world is already formed by the age of 3.

From my professional experience working as a psychotherapist with many adults with recurring problems, I would say that is largely true.

We can modify our behaviour later and become subject to an enormous range of influences during the next 15-year journey into adulthood, both at school and in our local environment, but whether we relate to others assertively or aggressively, passively, dominantly or cooperatively, and act with confidence or reticence, for example, is already set.

The biggest and most powerful influences on our childhood, from both a biological, proximity and intimacy point of view (and for both good and bad) remain our parents – or if we have lost our parents (a devastating event in itself), those who take over that role.

Therefore, being a parent is perhaps the most responsible (and difficult) job going. Where’s the training? Only the quality of our own childhood experience.

Not only are our parenting skills crucial to our child’s future but to the world’s future too.

We as parents, have a major role in shaping future adults who are confident without being arrogant and cooperative and peace-loving without being fearful, aggressive and conflicting – plus all the degrees in between.

We can infect them with our negative prejudices or encourage them to be open, reasoning adults who will think for themselves and make up their own mind what is best for them and the general good in any given new situation.

Key to producing caring, reliable children who will turn into adults that respect others and the planet, as well as themselves, is “time”.

The amount of time, quality time, we give our children is vital to how they self-define their value as a person.

If as a parent you don’t spend positive quality time talking, listening, playing, interacting and demonstrating love for your children, they in turn, especially when small, will learn that they are not worth your time spent on those things – and by extension not worth much as a human being (that’s how children think).

And children that grow up to be adults that believe they are not worth much will either become very insecure or compensate by becoming overly aggressive (to one degree or another).

Following on from a worldwide survey they conducted in 2009, the market research company FK&Y, on behalf of furniture giant IKEA (probably commissioned for commercial reasons), ran an updated one in 2014 to determine both adult and child attitudes to “play”.

The Play Report 2015 pointed out that “play” is really important for learning about life. “It fuels development. Makes us more creative, stronger and more active. It teaches us to work together and care about each other. It sparks curiosity”.

The report goes on to say that, “Play is a state of mind. A way of finding fun in everything you do – especially those normal, everyday activities that are such a big part of our lives at home”.

The 2015 report interviewed 29,199 people from 12 countries on the continents of America, Europe and Asia, including the states of Russia, China, India and South Korea.

Of the 29,199 interviewed, 16,174 were adults, 6,235 were children aged 7 – 12 and 6,790 were 13 – 18 years old.

The most striking things from the survey were that overall 51% of children said that they would like to “spend more time with their parents” and 71% of parents felt their home should be “a place of fun and play”, yet 49% of parents admitted they “did not spend enough time playing with their children” and felt guilty about it.

51% of 7 – 12 year olds reported that their parents “always seem to be in a rush” and 41% of 13-18 year olds.

Interestingly, it is now emerging countries like India, China and South Korea where parents say most that they “do not have enough time to play with their children”. In India it was 60% of those parents interviewed, whereas in the Netherlands it comes down to 33%.

(The Netherlands has also been recognised by the UN as one of the best countries for children to grow up in, more families eating and sharing activities together than anywhere else.)

Other research shows that parents actually spend more time physically with their children now, than they did in the 1970’s when many of today’s parents were born. That’s possibly because back then we as children spent more time playing outside with friends than many parents would allow, for security reasons, now.

However, it is “quality time” that is missing. Entire families sitting around a table in a restaurant all playing separately with their smartphones is not an uncommon sight.

23% of parents interviewed in the Play Report admitted to sometimes communicating with members of their family while together in the same house via text messages or social media.

In other households a reaction to digital overload has provoked a ban in using all mobiles for an hour or so each evening so the whole family can interact more effectively, humanly and face to face. The choices are ours to make.

Nor is the attraction of digital devices all pervasive.

No less than 80% of children covered by the Play Report said they preferred playing with friends rather than watching TV (19%) or using the Internet (17%) and 51% said they would like to spend more time with their parents, as previously mentioned.

Though as parents we often want out children to change their behaviour, our children unsurprisingly want the same from us. The top 10 changes that children want their parents to make are as follows:

1. To come home earlier from work.2. To spend time outdoors together.3. To join in playing with toys.4. To play video games together.5. To play board games as a family.6. To find time to read together.7. To cook and bake together.8. To help them with homework.9. To watch TV as a family.10. And to set time aside just to talk.

If we take on the responsibility of being a parent, is that too much to ask, especially given the consequences of not responding to these requests? I don’t think so. And I am horribly aware of the stresses of having to work to earn money to make ends meet. Too often life does not seem fair.

31% of parents in the Play Report said that when they do play with their children they are too stressed to enjoy it, while others admitted that they are bored – which says a lot about the quality of that relationship.

Conversely, children obviously find play therapeutic, nearly 50% of 7 -12 year olds saying that when they play they do not worry about things. Clearly a lesson for us all there.

The Play Report emphasises that play is important too for our children’s physical, social and cognitive development.

If it is also good for relaxation and stronger, more fulfilling relationships both now and in the future – perhaps more fun and play should be on all our agendas.

I therefore suggest that “More Fun, Play and Quality Family Time” should be our top resolution for 2016! (And if you haven’t got family, then with good friends.)

It sounds a lot less difficult than losing weight and more healthily compulsive in a good way that will benefit the whole family in the short term and eventually, with luck, the rest of the planet in the long term.

A HAPPIER NEW YEAR IN 2016?

Firstly, I wish all my readers a Happy New Year plus good health, prosperity and lots of love and kindness throughout 2016. Many thanks to all of you who visited my blog throughout 2015 –719,764 times to be precise! Which is a phenomenal increase on the previous year (244,133).

I started this blog on January 1st 2011, so today is my 5th anniversary. In those 5 years the blog has had in excess of 1.29 million visitors and was read by an average of 1,972 people a day from 198 countries in 2015.

Happy New Year from London 2016

For many though, will it be a happier new year in 2016?

Across the world there are now thousands affected by extreme climate change phenomena. In the US hurricanes and tornadoes have destroyed homes and killed householders, in the UK some people had their homes flooded for the 3rd time in a month and it will be months before they can get back in, and in South America tens of thousands are displaced after rivers 6 metres above their normal levels burst their banks. And that was only December.

There will, unfortunately, be a lot worse to come unless we get to grips with what we are collectively doing to the planet.

For Syria and Iraq, about which I have written extensively, things still look grim. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, and more than 10 million have been displaced from their homes. Tens of thousands more have fled to Europe or eke out a desperate existence in a refugee camp. Thousands have died, including many children, trying to make it across the Mediterranean “to a better life” in the EU.

And it does not look to get better any day soon. While politicians and diplomats endlessly talk, on the ground the fighting continues all day, every day and thousands more needlessly die or are seriously maimed or injured. Add to that the appalling, unfeeling and devilish actions of the Islamic State, and there does not seem a great deal to be optimistic about.

But optimistic I am. Every bad and hateful action leaves a residue of energy which eventually builds to a good reaction against it. The worse things get, the greater the demand for a positive response.

Too often we feel helpless and that there is little we can do. But there is. If you have spare cash donate to those groups that are making a difference. If you don’t, give some time or energy to those groups. If you do not have those either, support the petitions of human rights groups across the world who fight against the false imprisonment of individuals and for suppressed and threatened communities irrespective of their race, sex or religion. There is no shortage of causes.

For my part, I will continue to highlight events which mainstream media often ignore once the ratings start to sag and do my best to angle everything towards human rights and an appreciation that we are all equally human ( unless, of course, like the Islamic State and other barbarians, people descend into inhumanity and madness). Plus, in the darkness, the odd spark of humour and stories to uplift and inspire.

I also hope to produce some other work to personally help and grow the confidence of everyone not functioning to their full capacity. Watch this space.

In the mean time, if you can’t be right – be kind. Stand up and be counted when its appropriate and right, and stand back and observe when it is not. And we will see if the world is a better place in 2017. But until then I wish you all ….

7 STRATEGIES TO DEFEAT THE ISLAMIC STATE IN 2016

Frankly, the world has little choice but to fight the Islamic State. So as 2015 ends I offer 7 strategies to defeat the Islamic State in 2016.

It is a movement that is violent, cruel, irreligious and without compassion and it cannot be left to dominate and destroy social structures in the Middle East or elsewhere.

Modern society in either the West or the East is not perfect. It is riven with failed attempts at equality, plurality, democracy and inclusivity – but it has progressed and most of us benefit to one degree or another from this stuttering progress.

I can write this blog because I live in a society which protects my right, by and large, to express my views.

Still not so in many countries in the world where some significant powers have poor human rights and lock up bloggers because they dare to expose an attitude that is contrary to that of the ruling elite.

But unless all of us stand up against the Islamic State (IS), then any rights we currently enjoy, however tentative, will be swept away.

IS administers by rules of its own creation, fear and demonstrations of violence to subdue opposition. It is not interested in negotiating compromise.

Personally, I am against war and violence and I hate bombs and guns. But when your family is threatened do you hold to those feelings as “inviolate principles” or do you defend your family?

Although it clearly may take more than a year, I therefore put forward (in no particular order) these 7 strategies to defeat the Islamic State in 2016.

1. Moslems – Stand Up For the Society in Which You Live:

All those Moslems who oppose the actions of the Islamic State need to stand up for the countries and society’s in which they live.

It is not enough just to condemn the dreadful actions of IS and their misguided adherents in Paris, Tunisia, the US and across the world. It is necessary for Moslems to shun fear of persecution and stand up and say, “We oppose this obscenity. We support and are part of this community and will defend its right to exist and its values”.

And be willing to question Islamic attitudes to violence and religious beliefs.

In the Tennessee town of Chattanooga in the US they have set an example by doing just that.

Last July four Marines and a Sailor were killed in Chattanooga, recently described as America’s “most bible-minded city”, by a young Moslem who grew up there and who went on a mindless rampage.

Mindful of President Obama’s call for Moslems to both condemn violence and build stronger ties to their non-Moslem neighbours, Bassam Issa, the president of the “Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga”, has been giving talks in local schools and colleges.

In them Mr Issa tells students that “What’s happening right now is not religious, even though IS and Al Qaeda are covered as a religious thing. In reality, it’s political.”

And he is right. It’s the politics of domination through control, violence and murder rather than the ballot box.

Dr. Mohsin Ali, a child psychiatrist and another member of the Chattanooga Islamic Society, said “We can’t ignore the fact that violent extremists use an interpretation of the very same books and texts that we use. I feel like the Muslim community does need to do more”.

The day after the killings in Chattanooga at a memorial service for the killed servicemen, Dr Ali told the congregation that he and other Moslems in the city were grieving alongside everyone else.

He then asked the Moslems in the Baptist Church to stand as a sign of the allegiance to Chattanooga and to peace. When dozens of Moslems stood, the rest of the congregation applauded loudly.

That’s the way forward. Coming together rather than tearing apart.

We are all in this – our religious or non-religious beliefs are irrelevant.

2. THE REST OF US – STAND UP FOR MOSLEMS:

Using the events of IS and its followers to justify anti-Moslem beliefs, actions and opinions is just ignorance and blind stupidity.

It’s a sign of the immature using their inadequacy and personal anger (whatever the origins) to dump on others. If you feel that way, look deep inside yourself – not at scapegoats.

Apart from which Moslems are not hereditarily more violent than the rest of us.

The whole history of Christianity is full of violence against “non-believers” and non-conforming sects. Buddhists (the supposedly “peaceful religion”) are accused of dreadful atrocities against the Rohingya in northern Myanmar (Burma). “Spreading atheist thought” is a crime punishable by imprisonment in Saudi Arabia.

At the end of the day we are all fellow human beings put on this planet presumably to exercise our individuality and creativity. Therefore, our diversity should be celebrated and respected as our community’s strength – not undermined or attacked and made into its weakness.

3. OPPOSE SECTARIANISM:

Sectarianism, the belief that my sect (of the same religion) is better than your sect, is about as bright as the stupidity of anti-Moslem feelings described above.

And it is probably the biggest problem affecting the Middle East today, polarising the Sunnis, led by Saudi Arabia, on one side and the Shiites (Shia), led by Iran, on the other.

In fact, the rise of the Islamic State can be traced back to Sunni suppression and sectarianism in Iraq. After the fall of Saddam Hussain, a Sunni who had persecuted the Shia (and Kurds) for years, Shiite politicians gained power in Iraq and excluded the Sunni.

Some of the remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq were taken over by former Sunni military officers in Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime, who fanned the flames of Sunni dissent, and hey presto the Islamic State emerges with an extreme Sunni orientated philosophy.

Considering the difference between Sunnis and Shiites is based on who they revere as the family leaders of Prophet Mohammad’s legacy and all the clashes, deaths and abuses that have followed, it’s up there with the Inquisition which the Roman Catholic Church imposed on others in various forms in Europe between the 12th and 19th Centuries, killing and torturing tens of thousands.

Pointless abuse which seeks to impose thought control on others.

4. KEEP ATTACKING ISLAMIC STATE FINANCE:

According to research at the beginning of December, the Islamic State rakes in about $80 million a month, $1.1 million a day coming from oil sales alone. The rest of their income comes from emptying banks, selling antiquities, ransoms and local taxation (“zakat”).

However, IS has grown so rapidly that, according to the Financial Times, its accounting procedures are out of control and they are unable to verify who claims what.

According to the report an IS “Emir” known as Abu Fatima Al-Tunisi ran off with $25,000 worth of “zakat”, leaving a note on Twitter for his “comrades” saying, “What state? What caliphate? You idiots.”

Then there is the problem of “50,000 ghost soldiers”, with commanders drawing salaries for say 250 men a month, when in fact they only have 150 in their brigade.

To deal with the problem IS sent round administrators who paid the salaries in person, but then they made deals with the commanders to get a cut, with the same result.

In other words, corruption within the Islamic State is rife, again saying much about the spiritual nature of the organisation – or lack of spirituality in general.

At the same time, the Coalition and Russia should continue dismantling IS oil processing plants, tankers and well heads, making them unusable, and the world’s financial markets should block any attempts to do business with them or seize any transferred funds where they are identified.

Turkey, Israel and Assad have all been accused of buying IS oil and it is probably true as it comes through middle-men who ship it around the Middle East for a profit until its origins are obscure.

Easy to say that people should stop paying ransom bribes – but more difficult to adhere to when members of your family and community are imprisoned and brutalised by members of this loathsome organisation.

5. CONTINUE PRECISION BOMBING ON THE ISLAMIC STATE:

As I said at the beginning, I am no lover of military solutions – but sometimes there is no choice because IS and their followers are bloodily killing anyone they can.

Precision bombing by Coalition aircraft has done a remarkably good job with few collateral civilian deaths, hitting IS military targets time after time and empowering groups like the Kurds to advance and take territory away from the Jihadists.

Preferably there should be no civilian deaths at all but clearly IS hangers-on do know by now what they are in for if they stay.

By contrast, random and indiscriminate bombing by the Assad regime and now the Russian Air force too, has killed thousands of innocent civilians in the last 4 years and Assad’s Air Force are by far and away the biggest killers of civilians in Syria, far more than IS.

6. BATTLE THE ISLAMIC STATE ON MANY FRONTS:

In 2015 the Kurds in northern Syria have nearly tripled the territory they control, while at the same time they have helped to reduce the size of the IS caliphate by 14%.

One of the reasons that the Kurds (YPG/YPJ) in Syria have been so successful, apart from their innate determination and passion to survive, is that IS have found themselves stretched on too many fronts fighting too many battles and the Kurds have taken advantage of that.

According to analysis by the security company IHS Jane’s, IS activity in areas it controls has recently been most intense around Baghdad in Iraq and Damascus in Syria and much less near Kurdish controlled areas, suggesting they were overstretched.

When the Kurdish YPG for instance launched a campaign to retake Tal Abyad in northern Syria near the Turkish border, the forces of the Islamic State were widely spread elsewhere fighting battles in central and western Syria and in Iraq.

“The remaining forces in Tal Abyad were so depleted that they had to be re-enforced with… religious police units from Raqqa,” says IHS Jane’s.

While IS will continue no doubt to use the strategy of surprise, popping up unexpectedly in the most unlikely places, all other sides battling them on multiple fronts will put their fighters and their command and control structures under severe strain. That tension can’t be maintained indefinitely.

Along with this, arm, train and equip those who are most effective against IS and send in special forces not only to guide and help forces like the Kurds with air support but to conduct raids to take out the IS leadership.

7. GIVE IT TIME TO SELF DESTRUCT:

As long as everyone keeps up the pressure, time itself will see the Islamic State degrade and self-destruct.

Firstly, disillusion will set in, with the foreigners in particular discovering the caliphate is not the “earthly paradise” it was cracked-up to be. Living in dirty, and uncomfortable, dangerous conditions with bombs raining down and expensive food and electricity in short supply is probably not what they signed up for.

Escaping is not so easy either. A 17 year old Austrian girl who travelled to Syria to join IS last year, Sabra Kesinovic, is thought to have been beaten to death as she tried to escape in November. Many other potential escapees have been caught near the Turkish border and shot.

Secondly, a number of Sunni tribes who originally gave their allegiance to IS have also changed their mind and some have paid a terrible price for their “disloyalty” – around 900 members of the Al-Shaitat tribe in eastern Syria are believed to have been executed, crucified and beheaded.

The Islamic State’s aim with this is to spread terror and prevent further physical desertions, but it won’t prevent the loss of hearts and minds, it will only accelerate it.

Thirdly, the Islamic State is also riddled with corruption, as mentioned earlier. That will only increase as those in a position to take advantage of it will recognise a “sinking ship” when the see it and get out with their booty while they can.

Fourthly, IS was very successful in winning hearts and minds initially in areas it went into by providing food handouts and community services including financial support. With time that will become more and more difficult to sustain and be outweighed by its cruel and unjust treatment of those it believes have transgressed their rules.

And with time, those who were attracted to IS for “spiritual” reasons will eventually see that the whole organisation was cynically built around a religious philosophy to justify its actions, when in fact almost everything it does is against all modern definitions of decency and humanity and decidely “unspiritual”.

CONCLUSION:

Can the Islamic State be eliminated completely? Probably not. Like Al Qaeda it will linger on in the warped minds and heads of those with vengeful personal agendas looking for an excuse to justify themselves.

But like Al Qaeda, it can be contained.

There is no shortage of problems in the world that need solutions, but this is the most pressing and like the Nazi threat of World War ll it must be met head on. Implementing the above 7 strategies to defeat the Islamic State in 2016 will go a long way to make that happen.

SAUDI WOMEN TAKE ONE SMALL STEP INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

Congratulations to Saudi Arabia as Saudi women take one small step into the 21st century by both voting and standing for council posts in last weekend’s municipal elections.

Women in Saudi Arabia Vote for the First Time

Right across Saudi Arabia from small villages to the largest cities, 20 women were elected to municipal council seats.

Of the 7,000 candidates who stood for election, 979 were women and 2,100 seats were up for the taking in 249 local councils, so 20 female winners represent only 1% of those appointed – but it’s a start when before you have had no representation at all.

The Saudi King also has a quota of 1,050 seats to fill with his appointees, so hopefully he will he will take the opportunity to let in a few more of the women candidates.

4 women were elected in Riyadh, the conservative capital and 2 in the predominately Shia Islam Eastern Province.

Another woman was elected in Jeddah in western Saudi Arabia, perhaps the country’s most cosmopolitan city, while one more gained a seat in the holy city of Medina, the site of Prophet Mohammed’s first mosque.

Another woman was elected in the village of Madrakah, 150 kilometres north of Mecca which over bad roads has the nearest hospital, pointing out that many women in her village ended up giving birth in cars.

Other issues raised by the women candidates were more nurseries to look after children while mothers worked, more community centres for sports and cultural activities, the aforementioned better roads, improved garbage collection and greener cities.

I suspect there might be some more directly feminist issues waiting to surface in the background, but with this tentative level of suppression release it is probably wise to save those for another day. Saudi Arabia’s extreme clerics will be enraged at the changes as it is.

Credit for the policies all go to the new Saudi leader, King Salman, the Crown Prince Mohamed bin Nayef and the Deputy Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, plus a coterie of relatively young, well-educated Cabinet members who frequently travel to the West and other countries worldwide.

While I am no great believer in the inalienable rights or abilities of hereditary royals, when it’s all you’ve got and they hold all the power and the purse strings, that’s what you have to work with.

In an attempt to make the elections a more level playing field for women forced to wear the full face-veil the General Election Committee, presumably on orders from the Government, banned all candidates, male and female from showing their faces in promotional posters, advertising boards or online. They were also not allowed to appear on television.

Of the 130,000 women who registered to vote, a 106,000 did so. Of the 1.35 million men registered to vote, less than half actually filled in a ballot paper, around 600,000. Overall turnout was 47%.

In Jeddah, 3 generations of women from the same family voted for the very first time, the oldest being 94.

Her daughter reflected on how important it was to vote, saying, “I walked in and said I’ve have never seen this before. Only in the movies. It was a thrilling experience.”

That response, while understood, would probably be seen as “sad” in the West.

Especially as Saudi women are still not allowed to drive a car, go out on their own unless accompanied by a male chaperone (usually a close family member), go to a mixed swimming pool, compete in sports, or wear clothes or make-up that “may show up their beauty”.

Interestingly, in a show of support, Uber drivers in some of the major cities drove women to the polling stations in last weekend’s elections, for free (though I can’t help wondering how many men refused to accompany their wives or even let them out of the house?)

There is still a long way to go.

Saudi women who competed in the last Olympic Games were described as “prostitutes” by hardline clerics back home and the Saudi consultant to the Olympic Committee has even proposed this year, 2015, that Saudi Arabia be allowed to host the Games – but with no women at all taking part!

At a recent book fair in Jeddah, where books by female Saudi writers were displayed and women took part in Q and A panels (and even Donald Trumps’ books were on display), 2 men got up and protested when a female poet started quoting poetry from her new book.

One of the men, addressing the audience, asked, “Do you accept that a woman recites poetry?” Fortunately, the audience responded with an unequivocal ‘yes’ and the two men were escorted out.

In Saudi Arabia the roots of all this, on the surface at least, lie in Wahaabism the official religion of the State founded on the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, an 18th century cleric from the remote eastern interior of Arabia.

The main tenets of this religious philosophy is that there is only one God, Allah, and any that do not believe in him are unbelievers or apostates. The sectarian philosophy also does not believe in the worship and revering of clerics or saints and that there should be no shrines or places of worship other than those purely devoted to the “one God” (as defined by them).

This therefore excludes the Shiite Moslems who have numerous shrines and places of pilgrimage. In fact, in the original Wahaabi doctrines, jihad, or holy war against all “unbelievers”, including all other Moslems, was fully permissible.

In its extreme form Wahaabism forbids the “performing or listening to music, dancing, fortune telling, amulets, television programs (unless religious), smoking, playing backgammon, chess, or cards, drawing human or animal figures, acting in a play or writing fiction” and even the keeping or petting of dogs.

As far as women are concerned, they are forbidden to travel or work outside the home without their husband’s permission on the grounds that their “different physiological and biological structure” means they have a different family role to play, and if the husband does give permission to his wife to work outside the home, it can be withdrawn at any time.

As mentioned before, Wahhabism also forbids the driving of motor vehicles by women and sexual intercourse out of wedlock may be punished with beheading – although sex outside marriage is permissible with a “slave woman” (though probably not a woman with a “slave man” of course?).

(Just as well as Prince Bandar bin Sultan [former ambassador to the US and director of Saudi Intelligence] was the result of a “brief union” between his father, Sultan bin Abdul Aziz and a 16 year old “black serving women” – though slavery has since been “formerly banned” in the kingdom.)

In all of this it is easy to see the where the Islamic State gets its basic tenets and “vindication” from, offering a “pure” form of Islam which is “justified” in taking over the world (See last week’s post on The Anatomy of an Islamic State Jihadist).

Wahaabism has been so successful because it formed an alliance with the militarily aggressive House of Saud back in the 18th century, eventually taking over the whole of the Arabian peninsular, and more recently because of the billions of dollars of oil revenue monies used to promote it.

The result however is a bloody and deadly sectarian schism in Islam between the Sunni (of which Wahaabism is a part) and Shia branch descendants of Prophet Mohammad. Until this is sorted the Middle East and many other parts of the Islamic world will remain a mess.

However, the apparent misogynist aspects of Islam, Wahaabi or otherwise, are not restricted to males of the Moslem religion, they are still too common in the rest of the world.

Here in the UK, British boxer, Tyson Fury, who became WBA World Heavyweight Champion in November 2015, recently caused controversy by declaring that “a woman’s best place is in the kitchen and on her back – that’s my personal belief.”

Undoubtedly, he should keep his “personal beliefs” to himself, but I suspect that covertly a lot of men, wherever they are in the world, think the same way.

Such beliefs, in my view, are based on fear, pure and simple.

Again, as I have often written, our values are formed in childhood and if we grow up with bullying mothers, for whatever reason, and/or are encouraged by other males in the absurd notion that somehow men are “superior”, then we are more likely to gravitate to a male ethos that tries to suppress women in adulthood.

In fact it may be that suppression of women in the Islamic world and elsewhere which contributes to the disdain and disrespect that males show as adults towards women, is sometimes started by frustrated women taking out there anger at exclusion from full participation in the world, on their male (and female) children. And so the circle of deprivation and loss continues into the future.

The key to accelerating change is female education, as Malala Yousafzai, the 18 year old Pakistani, Noble Peace Prize winner has championed and to which, unsurprisingly, the Taliban and the Islamic State remain fiercely opposed.

At the Jeddah book fair mentioned earlier, the Saudi Minister of Education and Information, Adel al-Toraifi, said that an Arab reads six minutes a day, compared to the world average of 36 minutes.

He also said that the Arab world prints 27,809 books a year, which translates into 12,000 Arabs getting one book.

Compare that with China which publishes 440,000 books a year and the United States and the UK which publish just under 500,000 books a year between them.

Hopefully, the spread of and access to the Internet (when its male viewers are not accessing pornography) can help to change all that.

SYRIA NEWS

For further current news, views and information on Syria and Iraq click HERE:

Two days before the opening of the Geneva 2 “peace conference”, which in theory is supposed to agree a transitional government for Syria without President Assad, a devastating report has been published giving evidence of Assad’s war crimes with the systematic killing of 11,000 detainees by the his regime.

The report, based on evidence provided by a former Syrian policeman, has been prepared by three well-known international lawyers, all of whom have acted as prosecutors at previous international criminal tribunals, and contains 55,000 images of dead victims, many of whom have clearly been subjected to torture.

Ligature Marks Indicate Death by Strangulation

The defector was originally a “scene of crime” investigator who has worked for the Syrian Military Police for 13 years but in 2011 when the conflict started he was redirected to photograph and document the bodies of those brought from prisons and detention centres to a military hospital.

The images the policeman, codenamed “Caesar”, and his colleagues took showed evidence of starvation, brutal beatings, strangulation, and other forms of torture and killing.

Four or five pictures were taken of each body, 55,000 images therefore pertaining to around 11,000 dead detainees.

The were 2 reasons for the photographing. Firstly, to allow the production of a death certificate without family members seeing the body and protecting the authorities from having to explain the death, and secondly to provide “evidence” that an execution order had been carried out.

LAWYERS EXPERIENCED WAR CRIMES INVESTIGATORS:

The three lawyers in the enquiry team were Sir Desmond de Silva QC and Professor Sir Geoffrey Nice QC from the UK and Professor David M. Crane from the USA.

Both De Silva and Crane had previously been Chief Prosecutor in the Special Court on Sierra Leone convened to prosecute the former president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, on charges of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” (he was sentenced in May 2012 to 50 years imprisonment).

Professor Nice was the lead prosecutor in the trial of the former Yugoslavian and Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, who was also indicted on “crimes against humanity” at the International Criminal Court at the Hague, but who died from heart problems before the end of his 5 year trial.

These 3 reputable and credible investigators spent several days in January 2014 questioning “Caesar” at a location in the Middle East (probably Qatar, whose Government paid for a UK firm of solicitors to co-ordinate the investigation) and found him truthful and not prone to exaggeration.

“Caesar” admitted he had not witnessed a single torture or execution and was only involved afterwards, but sickened by what he saw he copied the images onto a flash memory drive and transmitted the pictures and documents to a family member abroad.

Evidence of Prisoners Starved to Death

ENQUIRY TEAM BACKED BY FORENSIC EXPERTS:

The enquiry team were also backed up by forensic experts Professor Sue Black and Dr. Stuart Hamilton, plus a forensic imaging expert, Stephen Cole.

They examined the images without prior knowledge of their source and deemed the photographs as authentic, unretouched and evidence of beating, binding, restraint or other physical assault but “excluding injuries that could reasonably have occurred as the result of legal combat engagement”.

26,948 images were directly provided by “Caesar” and more than 20,000 via the Opposition Syrian National Movement from “Caesar” and other sources.

“Caesar” also described how he and a doctor were sent to a military hospital to record the deaths of prisoners killed in detention, sometimes recording as many as 50 bodies a day, requiring 15 – 30 minutes of work on each corpse.

After the issue of a death certificate the families were informed that their family member had died “in hospital” from either a “heart attack” or “breathing problems”.

Each body was given two numbers, one referring to the branch of the intelligence service responsible for the detention and death of the detainee, and a second number falsifying that the detainee had died in hospital. The corpses were then taken away for burial in a rural location.

Evidence of Systematic Mass Killings

Although in the short time available the enquiry team was not able to examine every single image, they concluded that there is more than sufficient evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Assad regime.

De Silva told the London Guardian, where the report was first published (along with CNN), that the evidence “documented industrial-scale killing”. He added: “This is a smoking gun of a kind we didn’t have before. It makes a very strong case indeed.”

GOVERNMENTS AND NGOs DEMAND ACCESS TO DETAINEES:

Commenting on the report, a spokesman for the US Government said, “As we have for over two years, and again today, we call on the Syrian government to grant immediate and unfettered access to all their detention facilities by international documentation bodies, including the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria”.

A Human Rights Watch (HRW) spokeswomen said, “These photos – if authentic [Having not checked them ourselves] – suggest that we may have only scratched the surface of the horrific extent of torture in Syria’s notorious dungeons. There is only one way to get to the bottom of this and that is for the negotiating parties at Geneva II to grant unhindered access to Syria’s detention facilities to independent monitors.”

At the time of writing, the day after the release of the report, SANA, the Syrian official state media, makes no mention of the accusations at all.

President Bashar Assad, portrays himself as a loving family man, an urbane, gentle, sophisticated leader “loved” by his people.

He is clearly nothing of the kind. The Assad war crimes evidence detailed above can only happen systematically and repeatedly over a long period if authorised from above.

Evidence of Being Beaten to Death

Not withstanding that this report has been commissioned by Qatar (a sworn enemy of Assad and sponsors of the armed Opposition against him) and that it publication has been timed to cause maximum impact at the Geneva conference – the responsibility for everything described above is Assad’s.

He had allowed this to happen and directly or indirectly authorised it.

Assad is in fact a monster, a blood-thirsty killer, just like his father Hafez, who will do anything to preserve his family “dynasty” and the elitist position of the minority Alawite community to which he belongs.

Bashar Assad should be arrested and tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Court in the Hague, in the Netherlands, at the earliest possible opportunity.

ASSAD JET COMMITS WAR CRIME AT AZAZ – 40 CIVILIANS KILLED, UP TO 150 INJURED – I MAN “TODAY I BURIED 12 MEMBERS OF MY FAMILY”:

TIMELINE – 16th AUGUST 2012 12.15 GMT:

Around 3.00 pm local time yesterday afternoon, Wednesday, one of Assad’s MIG fighter jets screamed low over the FSA controlled town of Azaz in northern Syria near the Turkish border and delivered its deadly cargo of bombs.

Injured Woman Arrives at Field Hospital in Azaz – AP

Its targets were the former Ba’ath Party headquarters, now the HQ of the local FSA and a detention block nearby currently housing regime prisoners, Assad officials and members of the Shabiha.

Neither building was damaged. Azaz is a key town in the supply of food, medical supplies and probably ammunition and weapons to the FSA units fighting in Aleppo 30 miles (45 kilometres) away.

Instead the bombs fell on a residential block completely flattening dozens of houses over a 4,900 square metre area, instantly killing 40 civilians and injuring between 100 and 150 others.

Deadly Destruction by Assad Jet in Azaz

Houses on surrounding streets were also significantly damaged with collapsed walls and ceilings and shattered windows.

Families were resting at home together during the fasting hours of Ramadan.

The casualties have been moved as quickly as possible to Turkey for treatment but hospitals are struggling to cope with the influx. A further 15 are reported to have died since they were sent to hospital.

One resident. “Ahmed”, described how he buried 12 members of his family as a result of this airstrike.

Houses Destroyed at Azaz

“I was about 100 meters away from the house when I saw the airplane and heard the sound of the bombing and destruction.

My three brothers lived here.

I buried 12 of my family members today, including my father, my mother, and my sister – my brother’s wife as well. Walid, my brother, was cut into pieces. We didn’t recognize him at first. We buried my brothers’ children also. The youngest was 40 days old”.

You can read and see more from Human Rights Watch (HRW), who were there on the ground documenting the attack shortly after it happened, HERE:

Yesterday also the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva published a report on the massacre at Houla on the 25th May 2012 clearly attributing blame to Government forces and Assad’s armed militia, the Shabiha. The investigating commission interviewed more than 600 witnesses. 108 people were murdered, including 49 children and 34 women.

108 Buried at Houla After Massacre – Reuters

In part the report reads:

“The commission found reasonable grounds to believe that Government forces and the Shabbiha had committed the crimes against humanity of murder and of torture, war crimes and gross violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including unlawful killing, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, sexual violence, indiscriminate attack, pillaging and destruction of property.

The commission found that Government forces and Shabbiha members were responsible for the killings in Al-Houla.

The commission confirms its previous finding that violations were committed pursuant to State policy. Large-scale operations conducted in different governorates, their similar modus operandi, their complexity and integrated military-security apparatus indicate the involvement at the highest levels of the armed and security forces and the Government”.

The BBC has an interview with Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the Chairman of the UN inquiry, HERE:

TIME TO BRING PRESIDENT BASHAR AL-ASSAD OF SYRIA TO THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT:

EDITOR: Following these 2 events yesterday I decided to take personal action and launched another petition on AVAAZ, this time a call to bring President Bashar al-Assad to justice at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Bring Assad to the ICC for Crimes Against Humanity

No doubt Russia and China will block any attempt by the Security Council to refer Assad to the ICC, but if we get 1 million signatures even they will take notice!

Please retweet on Twitter and spread by email and on Facebook, Pinterest and other social media. More than 300 signatures have come in over the first 2 days from countries all over the world, including Russia.

The short address to retweet the petition is: http://bit.ly/AssadToICC